Boyolali tobacco growers suffer losses because of wet dry season

BINTANGNEWS.com –High earnings seem a distant thing for
tobacco farmers in the mountainous Merapi-Merbabu areas in Cepogo and Selo
districts, Boyolali, Central Java, although they have already begun harvesting.
This year’s wet dry season has threatened to reduce the quality of their
tobacco leaves, which may lead to severe price drops.

“This
year’s tobacco harvest yields are far from our expectations. Dried chopped
leaves of tobacco were priced at Rp 80,000 [US$6.07] per kilogram, but now they
are selling at only Rp 60,000,” said Sarmudi, 56, a resident of Sanden village
in Cepogo, Boyolali.

Other
tobacco farmers also shared similar concerns. Taryono, 58, predicted all
tobacco farmers would suffer losses in this year’s harvest. In a good harvest,
he could get profits of more than Rp 20 million, but this year he predicted he
would earn no more than Rp 5 million.

“We
have no choice. If we don’t immediately harvest our tobacco leaves, we will
suffer greater losses because we have to allocate more treatment costs,” said
Taryono.

After
harvesting tobacco leaves, farmers must chop and dry them by spreading them out
in the sun to dry. Unfortunately, the skies over the slopes of the Merapi and
Merbabu mountains are often cloudy and tobacco leaves must be dried on the same
day they are chopped. Chopped tobacco leaves will suffer damage if they are not
dried within a day and their worth declines further.

In
many cases, farmers must seek places with enough sunlight, usually in urban
areas. They dry their chopped tobacco leaves on fields or roadsides. They also
often have to rent the yard of residents’ houses to put their chopped tobacco
in the sun to dry.

“These
increase our production costs. To dry 1 ton of wet tobacco leaves, we have to
spend around Rp 1 million to pay workers. This does not yet include
transportation costs from Cepogo to drying places in those areas,” said
Taryono.

Ironically,
farmers cannot yet sell their dried chopped leaves to cigarette companies
because so far no company has opened warehouses to store them.

Unlike
Taryono, Sarwoto, 50, chose to delay his harvest because of ongoing heavy
rainfall, which made the curing process more difficult. Uncertain weather might
lead to a 50 percent drop both in harvest yields and tobacco quality, he said.

“It’s
a wet weather now; thus, not many farmers are willing to chop tobacco leaves.
On the other hand, cigarette factories have not yet started to bargain over
prices,” he said.

The
head of the Boyolali Agriculture, Plantation and Forestry Agency’s plantation
unit, Widodo, said the wet dry season had decreased the production of dried
tobacco in Boyolali to only about six to seven quintals per hectare. In 2015,
the production could reach nine to 10 quintals, he said.

Widodo
said for this year, 3,000 hectares of tobacco had been planted in Boyolali,
spread across areas on the slopes of the Merapi and Merbabu mountains, such as
in Ampel, Cepogo, Mojosongo, Musuk and Selo.

“Chopped
Boyolali tobacco leaves are sold to big cigarette companies. Farmers usually
sell their harvests to traders, who partner with the cigarette companies,” said
Widodo.***